The Musée Regards de Provence, committed to supporting artistic creation, has launched a residency dedicated to emerging young artists from the South Region. This initiative provides a space for research, creation, and production, while fostering exchanges between the artist, the public, exhibiting artists, and local stakeholders.
For its second edition, from January 20 to April 30, 2025, Marius Girardot, a visual artist graduate from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art in Aix-en-Provence, known for his participatory projects and multidisciplinary practice, was selected by the jury and took part in the residency at the Musée Regards de Provence.
As part of its mission to support emerging regional artistic creation, the Musée Regards de Provence launched a call for applications in the fall and winter of 2024 for its second “Research, Creation, and Production Residency.” The museum aims not only to serve as a space for exhibitions and public engagement but also as a place for creation, open to young painters and photographers. The selected artist is invited to present a project that resonates with the museum’s philosophy and fosters an active dialogue with the public and local stakeholders.
The artist must hold a DNSEP (Diplôme National Supérieur d’Expression Plastique) obtained within the last 10 years and be based in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region. The jury is composed of Bernard Muntaner, art critic and former director of Frac Paca, Pierre Constance-Fabre, director of Double V Gallery in Marseille, Jean-Jacques Surian, artist, Izabela Kowalczyk, artist, Pierre Dumon, president of the Regards de Provence Association, and Adeline Dumon, director of the Musée Regards de Provence. The museum received 33 applications, and the jury selected the visual artist, Marius Girardot.
Marius Girardot, a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art in Aix-en-Provence, further honed his art at La Cambre in Brussels and became involved in various residencies and artistic projects. Since then, he has collaborated with several artistic organizations, led artistic transmission projects, and continued his personal research, particularly in the context of participatory murals and artistic and cultural education projects. The artist intends to use the residency to initiate a new phase of creation focused on several series of paintings. With a multidisciplinary artistic practice and experience in participatory workshops, he has developed protocols that involve the public in the creative process, particularly through explorations of drawing, photography, and color. These experiences, enriched by aesthetic and conceptual inquiries, now lead him to return to a more introspective practice, focused on the reinterpretation of everyday and intimate images, blending abstract forms and influences from architecture, photography, and landscape.
During this residency, Marius Girardot begins research to create formal, intimate, and conceptual links with the surrounding landscape, incorporating elements from encounters and exchanges with the public. His project aims to develop a plastic research that connects colored forms and figurative representations while exploring theoretical and visual connections between popular and intimate imagery. The residency provides him with both a space for production and an opportunity for artistic transmission, allowing the public to discover a unique aesthetic that combines painting and the reproduction of personal images.
The public is invited to meet the artist throughout his residency, from January 20 to April 30, 2025, to experience the evolution of his work and understand the stakes of such creation. The culmination of this residency is an experience enriched by contacts with other artists, the public, cultural operators, and culminates in a presentation at the museum for a few months.